Morano is trying to spindoctor this into a newsworthy story by making it seem like Rancourt is someone who was completely accepting of the scientific reality of climate change and then just woke up one morning last week and decided to jump ship.

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Denis Rancourt was fired from the University of Ottawa more than a year ago because of his conduct in the workplace. He is publicly associated with one of the suspects in the terrorist bombing of the Royal Bank in Ottawa and claims he is also an anarchist. His academic credentials are utterly unrelated to climate change (but he does have real academic credentials in some area of magnetics in physics). He has never published a single peer reviewed paper on the topic of climate change, but has written some self-published essays, which are conspiracy theories. If you read them, you will notice that he does not use inline citation for peer reviewed sources. The reason appears to be that those sources do not actually support any of his arguments. The scientific parts of them are gibberish.

He’s not even an academic anymore and was never someone to take seriously on this issue.

Plus, his public commentary and disregard for the real world in the past leaves me wondering about safety in academic institutions.

Denis Rancourt has quite a “fan club” if you dig around in Ottawa. It is not a stretch to state that, for many, he is reviled because of his behaviour.

Denis Rancourt is the loopy former University of Ottawa physics (not environmental science) professor who was fired for giving all of his students in a class an A+ at the beginning of the course. He is a 9-11 conspiracy theorist, highly anti-Semitic, and taught a “direct action” (meaning thuggery, not peaceful demonstration) course at the U of O.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.